The Joe Biden administration will have to adopt other measures if it wants to address the issue of the migratory flow at the Southern border.
That’s what a federal judge in Texas decided when rejecting the new migration policy of the Joe Biden administration concerning asylum seekers.
Credited for limiting the number of people crossing the US-Mexico border, this policy violates the United States’ obligations to all those who sought refuge in Joe Biden’s country to escape violence in their country of origin, said Judge Jon Tigar.
For the judge in the district of Oakland, Texas, the government’s decision to restrict asylum seekers is in direct contradiction with the law in place since 1980, allowing migrants present on American soil to request humanitarian protection to avoid being deported from the country.
Regardless of how they arrived in the United States, refugees must have the chance to have their asylum request carefully examined, concluded the magistrate who had already adopted a similar measure against the Donald Trump administration, which had also sought to limit asylum requests from the Southern border.
Given the strict restrictions of this new migration policy, Joe Biden and his team should comply with factors already explicitly considered by Congress, argued Judge Tigar, who also believes that the new policy is “inaccessible” to far too many migrants.
“The court concludes that the rule is contrary to the law because it presumes that non-citizens who enter between entry points, using a mode of entry that Congress expressly intended not to affect asylum access, are ineligible for asylum,” he wrote, adding that “the rule is also contrary to the law because it presumes that non-citizens who have not sought protection in a transit country, despite Congress’s clear intent that this factor should only limit asylum access if the transit country actually presents a safe option.”
The decision to challenge Joe Biden’s new migration policy in court was made by the immigrant rights defense organization, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which welcomed the verdict of the judge in the district of Oakland.
“The judgment is a victory, but every day the Biden administration prolongs the fight against its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe refuge for their families find themselves in great danger,” said Katrina Eiland, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, as reported by CBS.
Judge Tigar’s decision is not expected to take effect until two weeks. This gives the administration time to exercise its right to appeal to the appeals court.
This is exactly what the government intends to do through the Department of Justice, according to the American media CBS.
“We are confident in our position that the rule circumventing legal pathways is a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by immigration laws,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Justice to CBS, noting that the administration “does not agree” with Tuesday’s judgment.
Adopted last May, this migration policy automatically disqualifies asylum seekers crossing the American border without legal authorization. They should also prove that they had already tried to seek refuge in other countries before entering the United States.
Thanks to this new migration rule, the Joe Biden administration has already rapidly expelled several thousand immigrants at the Southern border. Once expelled, they should not be allowed to return to the United States for a period of five years under the threat of legal prosecution.
This controversial measure is credited with significantly reducing attempts to enter the United States via the US-Mexico border.
As an alternative, Joe Biden’s team had created the humanitarian parole program for citizens from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Up until June, over 38,000 people from the mentioned countries were admitted to the United States, which is significantly below the number initially targeted by the American administration.
Initiated at the beginning of this year, this program aimed to facilitate the entry of 30,000 citizens each month from the four mentioned countries into the United States.
Thousands of people who submitted their application since January are still awaiting a decision from the American authorities, who have not provided too many details on the program’s execution since its implementation in January 2023.